There is nothing quite as competitive as the digital marketplace. Unlike physical stores, which have many opportunities to attract and capture customer attention, eCommerce stores have only seconds to sustain visitor attention. In fact, over 70 percent of Internet users admit to leaving a website if loading times exceeded five seconds. Moreover, if the overall functionality of a website refused to remain consistent, the majority of Internet users have no issues abandoning their task and moving on.

Because of the high demands of modern Internet users, website administrators must narrow their focus beyond creating viable content highlighted by intuitive website design. Protecting the performance and stability of a website is the foundation of any successful website – regardless of its intended purpose.

Protecting Critical Business Processes

The problem with many website monitoring solutions is its inability to truly monitor critical business processes. The modern digital enterprise is based upon complex infrastructure, which utilizes a myriad of physical and virtual components. While your website may be available, which signals an “OK” cue to your monitoring solution, several critical business processes, such as a shopping cart or information pages, may not be successfully completing their transactions.

Unfortunately, visitors don’t care whether or not your website is technically available if they can’t complete actions or access pages in an expected time frame. By monitoring various web applications, you can avoid a lot of problems with these processes. However, when these processes and pages are monitored through a well-appointed monitoring tool, the reputation and reliability of your website is safeguarded.

Real User Monitoring for Real Retention

While synthetic website monitoring ensures specific processes and functions within your enterprise are operational, they feature limitations in terms of real-time data. Synthetic test results are limited by the scope of its features. For example, tests are run using specific browsers, and the test is successful; however, a user with a non-tested browser experiences critical errors. In this scenario, a system administrator wouldn’t be aware of the problem unless a visitor comments on the lack of performance or functionality.

Prevent mistaken success by implementing real user monitoring, or RUM. This method of website monitoring captures data derived from actual users, and their experiences. This level of monitoring showcases the true performance and reliability of your site. The more control you have over monitoring, the greater your visitor attraction and retention rate.

To maximize the effectiveness of this powerful monitoring technique, utilize a RUM solution capable of delivering full page monitoring and data capturing. Utilize this information to then optimize your site according to the end user perspective and watch your bounce rate reduce while your average visitor duration increases.